POSITION IN THE SOUTH.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 4 November 1913, Page 5

POSITION IN THE SOUTH.

. SHIPPING TIED UP. : FERRY STEAMER;-€RE\VS ; WAVERING; A BOGUS' TELEGRAM/ , CHRISTCHURCH. Last Night. There has een no change in the situation at Lyttelton to-day, and matters were, *if anything, quieter than last week. The fourth day of the Lyttelton strike opened with almost a deserted port, the only vessels at the wharf being the ferry steamer Maori, the collier Canopus, the timber-laden Opouri, and three small schooners. Out in the stream! were the colliers Kini and Kaitangata. ■' There were busy times in the shipping offices this morning, where tho superintendent and his assistants were engaged in signing off the crews Of several ships. The schooners Annie Hill and Morning Light are paying off their crews, and the whole of the crew, of the Union Company's Kaitangata, which is lying at anchor in the stream with a full load of ooal on board from Newcastle, were paid, off at noon today. The master, chief and second officer?, chief engineer and book are,. the only' remaining members" of the' cre^'edi,board*-*. >• The crew of the Canopus was paid off/this afternoon, and.she has gone out into the stream. The statement that tho Wahine's wireless operator heard H.M.S. Philomel talking to the Psyche in code is denied from Wellingtoto,

The small steamer Wootton, with a shipment of cattle from Foxton, anchored in the stream at 9.30 o'clock last night. Sho was bound to Kaiapoi, but was unable to get in over the bar last night, owing to the tide not being suitable. She sailed at 4,30 a.m. to-day for Kaiapoi, and landed her cattle on the river bank. Her future iiovements are uncertain. The seamen and firemen of the Maori were very strongly opposed to leaving their ship. The action of the crew of the Wahine has had a certain ! moral effect on the men in the sister ship, and some of them are wavering in their determination to remain iu the sJiip, on the score that if they do so they may cause trouble is Wellington. In response to a telegram sent him to-day from the Maori, Mr Belcher, secretary of the Seamen's Union at Dunedin, again wired, advisi»g them t» hold faet te tlreir ship, asd it is »ta-te«j authoritatively that tho men hava no int«*ti*n «f giviag notice. It is ale* statad that when the Wahine's men gave in their aotices hero, they were influenced by a bogus telegram, purporting to come from Wellington, to the effect, that the crew of the Maori had given notice,. .